NEW DELHI, Feb 19: Former US president Bill Clinton said on Sunday that the United States expected relations between India and Pakistan to improve within the framework of an economically unified South Asia.

Mr Clinton, who is on a private visit to India, told CNN-IBN that President George W. Bush’s visit to the two countries next month was happening with a high emphasis on economic ties.

“First of all, there is, even more than before, a qualitatively different and broader relationship between the United States and India. That has been building up for years. That’s going to go well in the future,” Mr. Clinton predicted.

“We are going to have unprecedented economic cooperation. We are going to have unprecedented personal, educational exchanges. We are going to have a level of security cooperation that we have never known before. And hopefully, we will be friends in the context of an ever-more integrated South Asia, where the past problems between India and Pakistan will diminish over time.”

He said: “And increasing economic, political and security cooperation within South Asia will increase. I think we are key partner as on the big picture here.”

Mr Clinton played down the nuclear cooperation issue that has dominated the headlines in India. “This nuclear proposal whether you like it or don’t like it or have reservations about it, it shouldn’t be the lynchpin of this relationship,” he said. “It’s too big, it’s too important to the world. So you know, if it gets worked out, fine, before the president’s visit. If doesn’t, it will get worked out sooner or later.”

Mr Clinton described the US-Iran standoff as “the toughest problem we face right now. Because the Iranians are united in believing that they should have the right to develop a nuclear quest. This time even Indians do. And they don’t see themselves as a threat like everybody else”.